


Inheritance

by Setaflow



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Also didn't mean for Arya to become a wingman but here we are, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Character Death Fix, Character Study of sorts I suppose, F/M, Fix-It, The Bells? Jaime going back to Cersei? Don't know 'em, This is first and foremost a fixing of Jaime's character from 8x04 onwards, Welcome to my overuse of italics and inner monologues, and second and secondmost a middle finger to D&D, who are cordially invited to eat my entire ass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 09:40:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18848446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setaflow/pseuds/Setaflow
Summary: "Brienne. Gods help his foolishness, but she made him want to try. Try and fight for something, as stupid and unrewarding as it seemed in the moment. Try and remember who he was, what with his honor and all the double-edged morality that it carried. Even try and just survive; to slash at air with a stolen sword and Roose Bolton's men crowing around him; to scramble up a wall with one hand and a bear breathing up his ass; to even just force moldy bread down his throat instead of wallowing in his own fucking misery."In which Jaime Lannister, the killer of kings and the defender of innocents, is faced with a fork in his road.





	1. Kingslayer

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be a oneshot, but I decided that splitting it into a few chapters would be better because it's getting a bit out of my hands.
> 
> Idk I'm not even that big a Thrones fan but I'm a slut for good character development and if D&D want to spit on Jaime's nearly-perfect redemption arc, they can bite my ass for it.
> 
> It's been a while since I've read the books and I don't have a photographic memory for the show, so if things are wrong I'm sorry.

The seven hells wouldn't be nearly as cold as the North in the middle of a harsh winter, surely. Night had fallen for the twelfth time since the Long Night and the people of Winterfell still slept as soundly as the first. No more threat of the dead knocking on their door. No more fear of blizzards that could blow snow and terror straight through your heart. No more piercing blue eyes that shined through the wind and the fog and the blood and the bodies, the promise of a painful death the only thing remotely human remaining in them

Winterfell was deathly silent at this time of night. Normally, that notion would've been a comfort, but now it only served to make him on edge. Jaime Lannister wandered through the grounds like the ghosts of those who'd given their lives and their last breaths on that soil not too long ago, desperately searching for an answer he knew he was never going to find.

No matter how much precaution he took, no matter how many furs he'd thrown over himself to save him from the worst of the winter, it was still too  _fucking cold._ Jaime bit back his annoyance as his restlessness took him from the bedchambers to the armory, the kitchen, the stables, the Godswood. Snow crunched underfoot, the only sound to be heard for miles. But no amount of walking could make Jaime, covered head to foot in three layers of shirts, pants, socks, cloaks, and furs, warm and sated with himself.

The thought occurred to him, more than once, that he should just give up and return back to Brienne. Get back to her chambers and toss some more wood into the fire before clambering back under a pack's worth of wolf fur. She'd unknowingly press herself closer to him like she did every night after she had fallen asleep and sigh, for once in her life looking peaceful and content. Jaime would remain awake and stare at her, studying the lines on her face, the way her mouth looked when she slept, the way her short, straw-colored hair fell over her eyes, the way her snores were soft and quiet and gentle in the exact opposite way that she usually was in body and spirit.

Brienne, the maid of Tarth. Well, she wasn't a maid anymore. He'd made sure of that. And she was now  _Ser_ Brienne of Tarth—a knight of the Seven Kingdoms. He'd made sure of that too.

Jaime had grown genuinely fond of her presence, a revelation that surprised even himself. It wasn't just from several years of knowing her and learning to trust her blade as well as her judgement, but she was a welcome presence in a castle that seemed to have no end of enemies. The Starks would want him dead soon, as would Daenerys Targaryen. A lion in a den of multiple predators he couldn't possibly face on his own. At least with Brienne at, and on, his side, he didn't feel as though he'd need to constantly fend for himself.

And she was welcome company at night, but to Jaime that was neither here nor there.

Every night after the battle against the Night King, they'd made love. Every night after they made love, Jaime would lie awake and think about his life until exhaustion would force his eyes shut. Then, he'd get bombarded with nightmare after nightmare. They varied in some degree, but usually had one or two constants. Myrcella often appeared, her eyes milky and sightless, her teeth bared in a permanent snarl. Joffrey, with his golden robes and his golden hair and his golden crossbow—a golden standard to every Lannister before and after him. Catelyn Stark, blood flowing from her hands and throat until Jaime felt like he was choking on the very stench of it.

Every night, without fail, there was Cersei. Her golden hair would be aflame and her green eyes would be burning. She would beckon to him with kind words and soft smiles. Kind words that hid unspoken threats, soft smiles that hid smoldering anger. Jaime would walk to her but could never reach her before the darkness fell and he lost her in the night that had become of his mind. And then he would wake up in a cold sweat, wondering what it all meant.

Usually, he would stay in bed next to Brienne and take in her features to calm himself, but tonight he'd felt exceptionally on edge. He'd awoken to his sister's laughing face as he was pierced with arrow after arrow. Bronn's threat on his and Tyrion's life unnerved him more than he'd let on to his younger brother, quite possibly even more than he'd let on to himself after their initial encounter. Perhaps that was what the arrows represented—Jaime was no prophet, but that seemed fairly obvious.

Cersei had threatened him with murder. Sent Bronn, piss-drunk and masquerading as an assassin, after him. Tyrion's calm reaction to it all had to have been a front, but then again, maybe it wasn't. She and their youngest brother hated each other, but Cersei didn't hate Jaime. Jaime wasn't sure if he loved or hated her at this point, but did that hesitation justify murder? Was that how far the Lannisters had stooped?

He was so frazzled by it all that he'd stolen from his bedchambers, taking one last moment to watch Brienne's sleeping form before heading for the cold air in the hopes it would clear his head. It hadn't. All it had done for Jaime was make him more confused and lost. And as his feet took him towards areas of Winterfell he hadn't yet treaded, he tried to shake his head clear of Cersei.

But he couldn't.

Gods, he just couldn't.

The sound of a bowstring snapping sent Jaime back down to Earth with a very unpleasant bump. He'd somehow wandered into the blacksmith's and found that he wasn't alone.

Arya Stark stood some few feet away, a short bow in hand, studying something across the room and not at all paying attention to his arrival. Jaime's eyes followed hers—an arrow was embedded in one of the wooden posts, still swaying from the momentum of being fired—then fell back to her. Far from the wild, feisty, extremely short-tempered child she'd been when he'd first seen her in Winterfell, she was frightening composed and dangerously skilled. Her short, mousey-brown hair fell to the back of her neck. Bruises and healing cuts decorated her face, not that she seemed bothered by them. A dagger hung from her belt; her sword leaned against a table a little ways away.

For a moment, Jaime watched as Arya inspected the arrow she'd just fired, then reached for another off of the table. It was during this time that she'd caught sight of him. If she was in any way shocked or thrown off by Jaime's sudden appearance, he couldn't tell. She simply regarded him with a seemingly practiced indifference.

"Kingslayer," to her credit, she broke the silence first, cleaving through the quiet night as though taking an axe to it.

It took a moment for Jaime to find his voice and his manners. He dipped his head awkwardly in greeting, "Lady Stark."

"Not 'Lady'," she said simply, nocking another arrow, "just Arya."

Her voice, as cold and steady as still water, still betrayed how young she was. Gods, it all seemed so long ago when he'd come to Winterfell with Robert and Cersei. Seen her ushered into a line by her mother. Her brown hair, her long face, her dark eyes, all so drastically opposing the auburn and blue of her siblings. The only Stark child who actually had the look of a trueborn Stark. Jaime bit back a sigh, the weight of the memory almost making his missing hand itch, as if it too could sense the simpler time laid out before it.

_"Ah. The things I do for love."_

Jaime grimaced to himself, hoping against hope that Arya wouldn't see. His fingernails bit into the skin on his palm.

The memory was such a fucking curse now. Another burden he bore because his stupid pride had thought for him in place of his brain. Cersei's marks on him were like an entire army's worth of fingernails digging into his flesh, Jaime realized after a moment. Guiding his hands to swing swords and commit atrocities and suffer in his silence, taking up residence as different spirits to haunt his steps and his dreams.

All because he loved her.  _Had_  loved her? Jaime couldn't tell the difference between the past and the present, the living and the dead. He once assumed that the dead stayed that way; now, he wasn't so sure. The ghosts of his past were far stronger than they'd ever been, not to mention the wights he'd slaughtered, armies and armies' worth of dead men whose only desire was to rip his throat out. "Dead" was no longer a fixed concept in Jaime's world.

 _"There's a certain safety in 'dead', isn't there?"_  Jaime had once said that to Brienne about, of course, Arya Stark. He rolled the memory over and over in his mind, faded and worn like a weathered pebble.

"Are you just going to stand there?" the sound of Arya's voice momentarily jogged Jaime from his self-pity. He looked up as Arya let the arrow fly, watching it bury itself barely an inch away from the last one she'd fired. Then, she stared at him. The sarcasm in her eyes more than made up for the emotionless list in her voice, "I'd think the Kingslayer would hate being left out in the cold."

Jaime shrugged. "Can't really sleep," he confessed, working the heel of his boot into the frozen soil.

To his surprise, Arya just gave him a nod of understanding and didn't disparage him any further. She nocked another arrow. Jaime watched her draw the bow and let loose, that arrow lodging itself in the tiny space between the first and second. If Arya was satisfied or disappointed in her work, she gave no sign of it.

"You're taking this remarkably well," Jaime commented offhandedly, desperate to break the silence, "slaying the Night King and all."

Arya shrugged. "It's just another name, nothing more," she said.

"When word spreads, the Seven Kingdoms won't see it like that."

"Suppose so," she said. "That supposed to be advice from one Kingslayer to another?"

And just like that, Jaime felt his placid mood go up in smoke. He scowled and was about to tell her off for things she didn't understand when he caught sight of her face. Arya looked resigned in a way that wasn't obvious to him at first glance, standing out here all alone, firing arrows into wooden pillars instead of spending time with her bannermen or any of the other Stark siblings, even her bastard brother. She was just as confused and lost as he was, Jaime realized with a start. She was just hiding it in her own way.

For her sake as well as his, Jaime chose to ignore her last remark. "I assume you're not just going to sit by as the Northern armies march down south with the Targaryen girl?" he asked her.

Arya nodded. Her mouth was a thin line, "I mean no disrespect, but your sister isn't someone I have any intention of letting live." Her honesty was both incredibly refreshing and ruthlessly brutal.

Now Jaime was sure there was something wrong with him. Several years ago, a threat like that would've made him drive a sword straight through Arya Stark's heart. Never mind how old she was, or how serious she'd actually been. A threat to Cersei was something he'd dealt with without hesitation. And now, he no longer felt that drive as passionately in years past. It was a dull spark desperately trying to ignite wet wood. It was pitiful. Jaime loathed it in some way, and yet in other ways he was grateful for it. He was tired of just thinking with his pride. In some ways he hated the way he used to be. Stronger and more imposing, sure, but arrogant, brash, lazy. Like the world was Jaime's for the taking, Cersei riding his cock and all. He didn't have to make an effort; he only had to say the words, and everything he'd ever wanted came to him at once.

And then his thoughts inevitably drifted back to Brienne. Brienne. Gods help his foolishness, but she made him want to  _try._ Try and fight for something, as stupid and unrewarding as it seemed in the moment. Try and remember who he was, what with his honor and all the double-edged morality that it carried. Even try and just  _survive_ ; to slash at air with a stolen sword and Roose Bolton's men crowing around him; to scramble up a wall with one hand and a bear breathing up his ass; to even just force moldy bread down his throat instead of wallowing in his own fucking misery.

Jaime blinked once, then twice, then three times. A realization as clear as the light from the rising sun dawned on him.

"Hold on for a moment," Jaime spoke the words into existence before he could stop himself. Arya, a puzzled look overtaking her stoic disposition for a moment, lowered her bow. Jaime waited, and contemplated, and parsed through every single implication of the words he was about to speak.

This wasn't about thinking with his pride. This wasn't about thinking with his mind. This was, for the first time, about thinking with his heart.

Jaime took one last moment to contemplate his words, to see if he could sense any regret, and then spoke them anyway; "I need to ask you a favor."


	2. Brienne

He wasn't nearly quick enough in leaving Winterfell. It was hard enough to saddle a horse with two good hands, never mind one. Jaime's mind worked faster than his arms as he prepared his steed, but it wasn't too long before Brienne made her way down to the front gates in pursuit of him.

She was as big an idiot as he was, all wrapped up in that giant bearskin blanket with nothing else on under it. Her bare feet left prints behind in the snow. Brienne's hair was tussled, straw-colored locks falling in her face, doing little to hide the betrayal in her eyes.

Jaime could still recall the way she'd rushed forward and cupped his face in her hands. Her fingers were warm. Blue eyes met green ones, pleading, desperate. Every word she spoke to him, fragile and meek, still sliced through his chest like the arrows from his dreams.

"You're not like your sister. You're not. You're better than she is. You're a good man and you can't save her."

And Jaime could do nothing but hold onto her wrist as desperate pleading turned into desperate begging, and then to desperate tears.

"Stay with me. Please.  _Stay,_ " her voice cracked on her final words. It split the very world underneath his feet.

It took everything in Jaime's power to not spill his lying heart out on the grounds of Winterfell right then and there. Instead, Jaime merely nodded incoherently and fed Brienne anything back to her that would keep her in the North.

Even if it meant breaking her heart in the process.

Jaime stared at Brienne, heart pounding in his chest, "You think I'm a good man."

_Don't be a fool and follow me._

"I pushed a boy out a tower window. Crippled him for life. For Cersei."

_Stay with Sansa Stark. You need to keep her safe and out of harms way._

"I strangled my cousin with my own hands. Just to get back to Cersei."

_You're needed here. I need you here._

"I would've murdered every man, woman, and child in Riverrun, for Cersei."

_I need to do this alone._

"She's hateful. And so am I."

_Stay in Winterfell. Please. Stay._

And so, Ser Brienne of Tarth stayed in the North. Crying, naked, betrayed, and alone, but she stayed nevertheless. Jaime could still hear her weeping as he raced into the night, her rattling sobs hounds sprinting through the darkness to chase him down as an act of revenge. But Jaime ran, and ran and ran and ran until Winterfell was far behind him and her chilling cries didn't echo as loudly in his head as they'd done when he'd left.

King's Landing was days away, but Jaime couldn't stop. Every so often, he'd veer off of the Kingsroad to make sure that Brienne couldn't possibly be following him. Hearts were easy to break, but they were mendable in the end. For his sake, he hoped so, because there was a good chance Brienne wasn't going to forgive him for leaving her on that cold night in the North.


End file.
